Please follow this link to support your child’s learning at home.

Home Learning Guidance for parents

Any technical issues please contact Mrs Landsburgh on dojo

Please find a link to letters issued today by Angus Council

Letter to Parents-Carers 170320

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Apologies for any inconvenience

Please follow this link to access the letter for parents/ carers sent on behalf of Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Education.
https://education.gov.scot/media/t0cckfpe/grangepsncins210120.pdf
I am sure you will agree that the report captures the features of outstanding practice that make Grange great! To find out more please follow these links:
https://education.gov.scot/media/tmsc3s1y/grangepssif210120.pdf – primary
https://education.gov.scot/media/gfvohwhg/grangepsncsif210120.pdf – nursery
Thank you to everyone for your ongoing support of our fantastic school and I look forward to celebrating with the children on Friday afternoon at discos P1-4 2.00-2.30pm and P5-7 2.30-3.15pm.
The children are invited to ‘dress down’ on Friday and to being a snack/ drink…it’s party time!!
#timetoshine #believe #superproudHT

Please find attached the agenda for the Parent Council Meeting on Thursday 30th January

Hope to see as many of you as possible!

Grange PC Agenda 30.1.2020

What a positive start it has been to our new term at Grange, with so much Great Grange Learning underway. As always there is a buzz of activity and learning around our school as we all continue to REACH FOR THE STARS! #believe…

#progress – This term we will issue our first of three Progress Updates of the year to let you know how the children are progressing in their learning. Based upon feedback from parents last session we have included a teacher comment and the children’s own learning goals. Where children are not yet making the progress we would hope for, staff will be in touch to discuss the support which is in place in school and ways you can help at home. I am sure you will continue to be as impressed as I am by the children’s ability to discuss their progress in learning at our upcoming Learner Led Conferences. On the night the children will also be Sharing Our Learning from our Gaming @ Grange project so don’t miss it!

#positivity – We all know at Grange that we need to be challenged in our learning to become Great Grange Learners and our aim this year is to increase the level of challenge for everyone.We have used feedback from parents, staff and children to come up with our own definition of what we mean by CHALLENGE at Grange…

CHALLENGE IS EITHER TAKING THE NEXT STEP IN LEARNING OR LEARNING THAT STIMULATES YOU TO THINK, REASON OR SOLVE PROBLEMS – SOMETIMES IT’S BOTH!!

This is a first draft and we plan to use this with the children to help us have a shared understanding of what challenge looks like and of course what it feels like (it doesn’t always feel good!). Our staff have been working hard to try out different ways of increasing challenge in our classrooms and I look forward to sharing our progress with you over the year.

#rightchoices – We continue to have weekly Bounce Back sessions in our classes to help the children explore their social and emotional well-being. This will be particularly helpful as we move forward with our work on challenge as we all need the resilience to deal with our mistakes in learning and to use mistakes as opportunities to learn. Our Health Hub MAD group will continue to work hard to encourage everyone to make healthy choices and our Eco Warriors are doing a great job with their recycling duties – well done everyone!

#engageyourself – Our MAD Fundraisers are delighted to have raised over £650 from their apple crumble bags and the chocolate tombola. Thank you to everyone who supported them and they have great plans for the Christmas Fayre to build on their profit to help pay for our Christmas cinema trip. Another exciting enterprise venture has been developed by a group of P5 boys who are making and selling waffles to raise funds for our playground so watch out for more information – look out Sir Alan Sugar! Huge thanks as always to our Parent Council and Grange Gabbers for continuing to support the school by sharing views and opinions and for organising fantastic Halloween events for everyone. Don’t forget that the minutes from Parent Council meetings can be accessed on the school blog and everyone is always welcome to come along and help to improve our school. Our next family learning event will look at supporting our children to cope with anxiety and to build resilience – we look forward to seeing you on the night!

#acceptance –  We strive at Grange to make sure that we know all of our children on an individual basis to ensure they are making progress in learning and that they are happy! To help us with this we will be reviewing our Great Grange Relationships policy this Friday at Grange Gabbers 9.30-10.30am where we will share scripts used by staff and we will discuss rewards and consequences. Please come along if you would like to get involved – by sharing your views and opinions you help us to improve and to continue to make Grange great!

As you can imagine this is just a snapshot of all the amazing work that is going on in our school… I continue to feel privileged to work with such committed staff and of course wonderful children. Their energy, creativity and enthusiasm make our school the vibrant learning environment that it is and make us all proud to be Grangers! #believe

The minutes of the September Parent Council can be found here:

Parent Council Minutes

#positivity…This term has seen the start of our first whole school topic ‘Gaming’ which was launched by a visit from The Code Show. This was an exhibition which demonstrated the development of technology and gaming over the years. The classes are now immersed in game design and coding and we plan to share our learning with parents over our Learner Led Conferences in November.

#rightchoices…To link with our whole school topic we held our first in a series of family learning events ‘Parenting in a Digital Generation’. The evening focused upon the impact of digital technology and social media upon our children’s well-being. It was very thought provoking and the evaluations from parents were extremely positive. Please have a look on our blog for more information about apps, online safety and of course our fantastic ‘Guarding Grange’ vlogs!

#engageyourself…Over the last few weeks we have hosted our first Grange Gabbers and Nursery Natters meeting, a Staff Gabbers meeting and our first Mini Gabbers for the children. These all proved really useful ways of getting informal feedback to help us improve. We got ideas and views from parents and staff around ‘challenge’ which is one of our main areas of improvement. The children shared their views about the playground, timetabling and the dinner hall which we will take forward over the coming weeks.

#acceptance…We are continuing with our focus on ‘happiness’ with weekly ‘Bounce Back’ sessions to help everyone reflect upon relationships and resilience. At a recent staff meeting Mrs McIntosh and Mrs Balfour shared their approaches to daily ‘check ins’ which help to ensure that everyone is ready to learn after break and lunch. Mr Muir and Miss Henderson shared the SPLAT programme which offers our children a range of activities to develop social skills in an inclusive way. Our next family learning evening will support our work in school by considering the topics of anxiety and resilience.

#progress…At Learn to Learn last week our P7s shared their thoughts about ‘challenge’ and our task is now to take their ideas along with the feedback from staff and parents to come up with a definition of what challenge means at Grange! Our shared definition will then help us to recognise challenge in our classrooms as we all know at Grange that challenge helps us to become better learners. The next Head Teacher Challenge will involve every class in creating a ‘Stuck Stop’ to give the children strategies and resources to use when they are stuck! This will help everyone to cope with challenges and to become more independent – P6 will report back in October.

#believe…As if all of the above isn’t enough we hosted one of the most exciting community events Monifieth has seen, our Outdoor Cinema. The sun was shining and our families came in droves to see The Greatest Showman and of course Despicable Me. Huge thanks go out to the parents who made this ambitious idea into a wonderful reality (you know who you are!). In true Grange style we made a memory which will surely last a lifetime and reminded everyone that we should dream big and always REACH FOR THE STARS!

Parent Council Minutes

Welcome back…What a pleasure it has been to welcome all of the children back to school looking so smart and ready to learn. We have a number of new children joining us throughout the school and I have been so proud to see how kind and welcoming our school community has been. Our new recruits in P1 had their first full day today and they coped so well however I’m sure they will all be early to bed tonight (staff included!). Today was also the first day for our new Senior Clerical Officer, Mrs Jill Linton, who has replaced Mrs Sherret. I am sure I can rely upon everyone’s patience as she gets to grip with her new post and of course she will be assisted ably by Mrs McKee and Mrs Hanbury in the meantime.

#progress…This year we have two main areas of school improvement – HAPPINESS and CHALLENGE. Our Learning Council spoke to everyone about our improvement plans last week at our first Learn to Learn session. You can see a short video of their presentation on the School Story on Class Dojo, it’s most definitely worth a watch. We plan to ensure that all children feel happy at Grange by focusing upon their well-being through yoga, mindfulness, developing our playground and restorative approaches, to name but a few activities. To develop challenge we will be exploring classroom practice and investigating ways of making sure that all children are challenged in their learning. Last week I set all of the classes a Head Teacher Challenge at Learn to Learn – they have been asked to discuss what challenge is, how it feels, how we know when we are being challenged and how we cope. P7 will report back at our next Learn to Learn so I will keep you updated!

#positivity…We are not even two weeks back and the school is already buzzing with activity. Last Sunday a group of children, parents and staff took part in the Kilt Walk. It was a rather soggy occasion but lots of fun and a hugely successful fundraiser. We managed to raise around £2500 which will be used for playground improvements and we also got to meet Judy Murray who is keen to come to Grange to provide some tennis sessions – WOW! If that’s not enough excitement we now have an Outdoor Cinema coming very soon…we are really counting on the support of our whole school community to make this a success so please get your tickets either from the school office or online from Blue Monkey Events. Bring all of your friends and the whole family and let’s make it a weekend to remember!

#engageyourself…Look out for the first of a series of Family Learning events…on Wednesday 18th September 6.00-7.30pm we will be hosting an evening on Online Safety and Parenting in a Digital Age. This is particularly pertinent as we embark upon our whole school topic on ‘Gaming’ so watch out for more information. Our first Grange Gabbers meeting will be held on Friday 6th September 9.30-10.30am when we will be discussing our school and nursery improvement plans and ‘challenge’ – everyone welcome so please come to the school office if you can make it along. The Parent Council will be meeting on Tuesday 24th September in the school at 7.30pm – children are also welcome to join us for those of you who find childcare a challenge in the evenings. These are just some of the ways you can get involved so please join us if you can.

#acceptance…And finally (for now), last week we said goodbye to Mrs Mackenzie (Additional Support Needs Teacher) and this week we say goodbye to Mrs Harkins (School and Pupil Support Assistant). Both ladies have worked so hard in their time at Grange and have supported and cared for many of our children. They are both moving onto exciting new opportunities and we all wish them the very best of luck for the future. They will both be greatly missed and I am truly grateful for their commitment to our school. They will be very difficult to replace and I will keep you updated about new staff in due course.

If you are still reading, thank you for your interest and your support. It’s going to be another great year at Grange and I continue to feel truly privileged to lead such a vibrant and connected school… #believe